Finite-Time Fluctuations for the Totally Asymmetric Exclusion Process.

The one-dimensional totally asymmetric simple exclusion process, a Markov process describing classical hard-core particles hopping in the same direction, is considered on a periodic lattice of L sites. The relaxation to the nonequilibrium steady state, which occurs on the time scale t∼L^{3/2} for large L, is studied for the half-filled system with N=L/2 particles. Using large L asymptotics of Bethe ansatz formulas for the eigenstates, exact expressions depending explicitly on the rescaled time t/L^{3/2} are obtained for the average and two-point function of the local density, and for the current fluctuations for simple (stationary, flat and step) initial conditions, relating previous results for the infinite system to stationary large deviations.

Height distribution of the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation with sharp-wedge initial condition: numerical evaluations.

The time-dependent probability distribution function of the height for the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation with sharp wedge initial conditions has been obtained recently as a convolution between the Gumbel distribution and a difference of two Fredholm determinants. We evaluate numerically this distribution over the whole time span. The crossover from the short time behavior, which is Gaussian, to the long time behavior, which is governed by the Gaussian unitary ensemble (GUE) Tracy-Widom distribution, is clearly visible.